An employee of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) – the parent company of the Sellafield reprocessing plant – is claiming he was unfairly dismissed because he weighs 30 stone.
Graeme Ivison, 27, a health physics monitor, claims BNFL knew how big he was when it hired him; and that his size has stayed fairly constant in the years he had worked at Sellafield.
He told the Telegraph: “I’ve been treated very shoddily. I’ve been embarrassed. I’ve been humiliated. The point is, though, that I’ve done nothing wrong. All I want is to have my job back.”
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However, a spokesman for BNFL said: “His contract was terminated because he was too overweight to complete tasks essential to his role. He couldn’t fit through the turnstiles. He couldn’t even fit into his decontamination suit.”
Ivison, who had actually lost two stone before he was fired, was represented by the GMB at a hearing on Tuesday. However, as Personnel Today went to press, the union declined to comment on the outcome of the case.
